Despite an impressive first 40, the home side would be convincingly beaten in the end by Rosslyn Park in the first return fixture of the season.

As with the previous week’s performance against Ampthill, the fact it was a high penalty count and individual errors, this time an intercepted try, which stopped the home side from getting at least a point will leave a sour taste in the mouth of many of the supporters and players.

This frustration was felt by director of rugby Ross Stewart after the game.

He said: “Fair play to Rosslyn Park, they have a lot of experience at this level that makes the difference in these tight games.

“It is frustrating. The turning moment was the interception, if we scored we’d be one point ahead and we conceded and we’re however many behind.

“I thought first half we still gave away silly penalties and the boys have got to learn that it is committing suicide in those areas, we’re just giving people field position.

“It’s one game and 40 minutes of poor execution.

“We’ll learn from it and the next time we’ll hopefully do it better.”

The visitors took the lead with 12 minutes on the clock with a try that could have been a feature of any of Cambridge’s last three home games.

A penalty was given away at the break down which Rosslyn put into touch, then from a driving maul, prop Mark Lilley scored. Harry Leonard, who would not have the strongest afternoon from the tee, missed the conversion.

However, from this point Cambridge looked really impressive with the ball in hand.

Cameron Ruddock’s runs in particular were proving effective, and on 15 minutes Stef Liebenberg found one of them which broke through the defence allowing the hooker to pop the ball to Jake McCloud who scored a converted try.

A Leonard penalty moments later would put the visitors back in the lead, but the momentum was still firmly with Cambridge and they would score another try before the 20th minute.

After electing to go for touch from a penalty, another good line from Ruddock sparked the attack into life and after a few phases it was simply a case of passing the ball along the line for Matthew Hema to cross. Dan Lewis added the extras to make it 14-8.

Despite missing a penalty, Rosslyn would go in with the lead at the break. The visitors had an extended period of pressure on Cambridge’s line yet, after three penalties and a yellow card for Ricky Reeves, they still had not scored.

It didn’t matter, though, as Andy Reay would cross from the fourth scrum, despite hints of a double movement, to make it 15-14 at the break.

Two quick tries at the beginning of the second half changed the complexion of the game. Andrew Henderson got the first before Mark Kohler intercepted Jack Green’s pass and ran the length of the pitch to score, ending the game as a contest.

Cambridge certainly did not deserve to be so far behind by this point, and they never particularly regained the composure that they had shown up to that point.

A final try for Rosslyn followed with a few minutes left to go.

Again from a line-out, the maul formed and was driven over pretty easily for Edward Milne to touch down.